I agree with Cuncuna: I prefer the Nice. The fact is that they shared an attitude, a free, cosmopolitan, light and anarchic one, you could find in England at the end of the 1960s, the years of "proto-progressive". From the same scene you can take also albums such as Traffic's "Mr Fantasy", Pink Floyd's "The Piper...", Small Faces' "Odgen Nut...", all testifying an era of great freedom and freshness, unprecedented and never really reached by other "scenes"

I don't know what is it, but somehow I feel more comfortable listening to The Nice than listening to ELP. The sound of The Nice is, well, Nice; I mean, it is more innocent, the musicianship is a bit inaccurate, and I get the sense of the musicians really enjoying themselves while playing. Also, the overall sound is much more playful and emotion driven. As Jodorowsky says, "too much perfection is a mistake", wich is how I feel about ELP. The young Keith Emerson is slowly growing on me, while his perfectionist late self is fading away.

For such a perfectionist, he certainly fudges quite a lot of notes in some of the ELP stuff, I've noticed

I don't know what is it, but somehow I feel more comfortable listening to The Nice than listening to ELP. The sound of The Nice is, well, Nice; I mean, it is more innocent, the musicianship is a bit inaccurate, and I get the sense of the musicians really enjoying themselves while playing. Also, the overall sound is much more playful and emotion driven. As Jodorowsky says, "too much perfection is a mistake", wich is how I feel about ELP. The young Keith Emerson is slowly growing on me, while his perfectionist late self is fading away.

For such a perfectionist, he certainly fudges quite a lot of notes in some of the ELP stuff, I've noticed

I'm quite a fan of the Nice, though - for the same basic reason; That the music is more "innocent" - they didn't really know what they were trying to achieve, but they were having a damned good time doing it.

Please give examples to back up your 'off the cuff' remark!

If your talking about his improv's on live recordings, then he can be forgiven for the 'odd fudge' whilst playing his keyboards 'up-side-down' or sticking a dagger or two into the ivories. In the studio he was a perfectionist !

But it's obvious some idiot would've eventually came in
and gone, 'OMFGZ WUT R U T4LK1N ABOU7 , ELP IS TEH ROX!!!111' and lo
& behold, we have an argumentative thread. Bah humbug.

You could say that about any thread though, and I'd hate to see the day
that we stop discussing everything altogether for fear of offending
"some idiot" - just let it be. After all, the idiots are greatly
outnumbered... I hope .

Anyways, I kind of agree, although I guess it depends on my mood -
sometimes I just want to hear the perfectionist pretention of ELP, but
more often than not I'm with the thread starter - a lot of the time
it's nice to listen to great musicians when they're just not trying so
hard to push themselves to the limit. As a musician myself I've
personally found that the best music comes when you're just having fun
and NOT trying really hard anyways, so I think that's generally a
better approach to songwriting than "let's be as technical as
possible!".

I don't know what is it, but somehow I feel more comfortable listening to The Nice than listening to ELP. The sound of The Nice is, well, Nice; I mean, it is more innocent, the musicianship is a bit inaccurate, and I get the sense of the musicians really enjoying themselves while playing. Also, the overall sound is much more playful and emotion driven. As Jodorowsky says, "too much perfection is a mistake", wich is how I feel about ELP. The young Keith Emerson is slowly growing on me, while his perfectionist late self is fading away.

For such a perfectionist, he certainly fudges quite a lot of notes in some of the ELP stuff, I've noticed

I'm quite a fan of the Nice, though - for the same basic reason; That the music is more "innocent" - they didn't really know what they were trying to achieve, but they were having a damned good time doing it.

Please give examples to back up your 'off the cuff' remark!

If your talking about his improv's on live recordings, then he can be forgiven for the 'odd fudge' whilst playing his keyboards 'up-side-down' or sticking a dagger or two into the ivories. In the studio he was a perfectionist !

I am, in fact, talking about the studio albums, not the live ones - which are obviously excusable.

Please start another thread if you really want to discuss the accuracy of Emerson - as I'm aware of the passion that ELP fans have for the band - but think carefully before you do, because as a perfectionist and classically trained pianist myself, I find Emerson to be far from perfect - and if you consider the imperfections to be as those in a jewel, then the argument is already pointless.

I don't care how trained Cert is. I don't believe for a moment that Keith "fudges" any notes at all. Its all a bit arrogant if you ask me.

hahahha... people like Mark serve the site in a particular capacity Ian ...

a technical advisor for the technical weenies and wonks out there....

Not sure if I like that description. It doesn't send out the sort of message that I would choose.

I just appreciate and discuss music in my own way - if you wanted me to get technical, I could start

micky wrote:

people don't need an art degree to appreciate art.. or to be a musician to appreciate prog. Fudged or not... who cares... he defined the instrument that defined prog.

plus... he was a 1st class showman, and just plain fun to listen to. His resume.. not to mention his awards and accolades speak for themselves.

Exactly - there's no need to get upset about the fluffs, or go into some kind of bizarre denial over them - spotting the mistakes is not necessarily bashing the band, and not a reason for anyone who enjoys their music to stop (as if they would ).

Everyone can enjoy art in their own ways, of course - but the more you learn about it, the more you can appreciate it.

As I tried to imply with my "jewel" statement earlier - some ELP fans like the music because of these little impefections, that can show the humanity of the musicians.

I'm a huge ELP fan and the Nice were great too. Though Emerson was in both, IMO they should be qualified as seperate-The Nice being more on the psychedelic tip with some prog touches and ELP being full blown in your face prog. Both are great in their own right.

Sinkadus beat me to it. When I listen to the Nice I don`t even think of ELP. They were a great Psychedelic band with a neo-classical touch. A lot of those psychedelic bands from the sixties were not perfect and that`s why some of them could communicate to that generation.

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